Soulland extended its break from the runway this season, opting to host a dinner and show the collection by appointment instead. There are a variety of reasons for this, but certainly there’s some soul searching involved as creative director Silas Adler continues to reconcile how to best apply his background in skateboarding to fashion. Last season the designer started working with deadstock and bonding fabrics, a practice he continued evolving this season. The collection’s art print is a baroque number featuring peacocks. It’s effective as a design, but an outlier in a lineup that’s otherwise pared-back and not particularly ornate.
Among the most convincing pieces were the classics. Adler revisited the polo shirt, stretching it into a long white knit dress with black stripes. A slip dress and pajama separates with a beaded Soulland logo were other convincing takes on wardrobe staples. If you think about it, their making in some way mirrors the way that skaters return to the same tricks over and over, without ever executing them exactly the same way.
Catching air, and contributing an upbeat feeling to the collection, were floral motifs and injections of color like rose pink and neon brights. Their cheeriness belies the mindset of the designer; like many, Adler is concerned about the state of the world. When styling the collection he happened to misbutton a shirt and had an aha moment. “I realized, that says everything about now,” Adler said. “I was just like, ‘Okay, I’m just going to button everything wrong.’” It was his way to “express a weird feeling in a super simple way.” And it worked. Barbie and Ken might live in a perfect plastic world, but for most of the rest of us embracing imperfection is a key to making it through these treacherous times.
